Obesity, farmer suicides, destruction of the countryside, animal torture. Philip lymbery tells ANANYA BORGOHAIN how they can all be attributed to factory farming and ‘cheap’ meat
Reportedly, thousands of animals are slaughtered across the globe every minute. Factory farming is on the rise and ostensible cheap meat has become a trend. But how many of us have actually spared a thought to where the meat that we consume has come fromIJ As the Tesco controversy in the UK had established, horse meat was served in processed beef products. Production of fishmeal too is said to be one of the worst secrets of the food industry.
Philip lymbery is an established commentator on the effects of industrial farming. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Compassion World Farming and has come up with the book Farmageddon, co-authored with Isabel Oakeshott (Bloomsbury, Rs499), which talks about how industrialised agricultural systems destruct farmed animals, humans, the environment, rivers and oceans, biodiversity, and everything else that is possible. The enlightening book sheds light upon the brutal torture that birds and animals suffer in the farms and the dangerous, unethical procedures of manufacturing meat products. In an interview, lymbery elaborates about the harms of such arrangements:
Please familiarise us with the main concerns of factory farming.
This book is actually not written for vegetarians. We are not urging people to give up meat. We just wanted to reach out to them to clarify that ‘cheap meat’ from factory farms is bad for the countryside, animals, our health, the whole of the farming community for that matter. We are rather trying to tell people to switch to something healthier and better, which is, meat from animals. It is pasturised and organic and these are simple changes that one can easily incorporate in one’s life to make it a better world. In the last 50 to 60 years, animals have been disappearing from the lands in the West and are being put in windless pig sheds and cages. Factory farming is mass farming on an industrial scale. The animals are confined in cages where they can barely breathe and face brutal physical and mental torture. The beaks of hens, for instance, are chopped using machines and the ones who serve no purpose are wrapped alive in plastic and dumped in garbage bins where they die a slow death. It also involves using antibiotics and artificial breeding techniques to make them grow and produce beyond their natural limits. A chicken, that can live up to 12 years, is killed in some weeks for the meat. On one hand, when you feed these animals cereals and soya, a lot of food gets wasted on them and on the other, the food they eventually produce is highly compromised in nutritional value too. That’s the reason why people in the West are turning obese. Even thousands of bees are pollinated into the California almond trees because the indigenous lot has disappeared.
Have you faced resistance in coming up with the bookIJ
Yes, we have faced resistance from factory farmers who don’t want to see beyond their surroundings, which are filled with chains and cages. In fact, in China, the police seized our passports and a massive pig farm in the country tried to intimidate us. But it has got an amazing response nevertheless. We have got really great reviews from many reputed newspapers, like The Daily Telegraph, which gave us ‘five stars’, and why I found that interesting was because it is actually the farmers’ paper in the UK.
Aren’t their legal loopholes too which actually facilitate unethical factory farmingIJ
In the US and the Europe, not just legal loopholes, but there is full Governmental support in terms of policies and massive amounts of tax subsidies which encourage factory farming.
How do you look at it in the Indian contextIJ
In India, people have begun to learn from the mistakes we made in the West. We banned gestation crates where pregnant pigs can’t move, battery cages where hens can’t stretch their wings. Yet the European countries, which handle these cages, are now selling them in Asia. The chemical and drug companies are buying them. I am not the best person to evaluate Indian food culture, but I hear that the University of Kolkata found that when farms were stored away from industrial monocultures and factory farming, and resorted to diverse land-based farming, as much money could still be made. So the situation can still be restored in India, but as far as I can tell, the chicken and eggs are still produced through factory farming. IFFCO is now proposing to construct a factory farm, a mega dairy with thousands of cows stuffed together in it, in Hyderabad now. Other problem in India is the rising case of farmer suicides, which is happening because of too much dependence on technology.
But isn’t this the public taxpayers’ money which is used so harmfullyIJ
Sadly, yes. In Europe, nearly half of the Central budget is invested in farm subsidies. I cannot reinforce more how factory farming damages food, animals, the environment. Cheap meat is far from cheap. We pay for it several times over, through our taxes, health costs, by purchasing it and so on.
What would you recommend to the non-vegetarian foodies here in DelhiIJ
It is always recommended to opt for organic food. With reference to poultry, I am told that there is one reliable organisation called KEGGS in Gurgaon, which is one of the oldest poultry breeding organisations in India. I hear it uses genetic breeding. With respect to dairy, however, a decline has begun, but there is still a chance to avert it.